Black Gold In Ireland? MindThe Eco Warriors, Though.

Big Oil has watched the Irish scene and its public protests and court cases with trepidation. John O’Sullivan, technical director with Providence Resources, told the Financial Times, “We’ve definitely seen a Corrib ripple effect…. [Potential investors] go through the technical assessment, it gets to their main board and then someone who has worked at Shell or read about Corrib says they are not going to touch Ireland.”

11 November 2012

Ireland’s troubled economy received a jolt of hope last month with the news that an oil field off the achingly beautiful coast of West Cork may contain as much as 1.7 billion barrels of oil, with 280 million barrels of that recoverable in the short term at a rate of 100,000 barrels a day, That’s more than the entire country consumes and you would think “Eureka!” is the word. But few are doing cartwheels just yet, given the legacy of futility that has plagued Irish offshore resource exploration for decades.

Experts are convinced that the ocean floor around Ireland contains huge reservoirs of natural gas and oil, with total oil reserves potentially in the neighborhood of 10 billion barrels of oil or gas, just around this corner of the land where I live. But Norway Ireland isn’t. The country’s Atlantic shores face fierce seas, infrastructure remains patchy, and years of protests have beleaguered the efforts of Royal Dutch Shell and its affiliates Statoil and Vermilion Energy to bring their Corrib gas field on tap.

Providence Resources, the Dublin based company behind the new Cork discovery, hopes its Barryroe field may turn this around. Providence is run by Tony O’Reilly, Jr., son of the Irish magnate of the same name who was the former CEO of Heinz and builder of the Independent News & Media group, sold in 2010 to the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev. O’Reilly Junior was talking Norway last month. “From an Irish perspective, here we have no oil industry. This really heralds the beginning of the industry.”

Indeed, Ireland burned 142,000 barrels of oil a day in 2011 at a cost hovering around $8 agallon, or 18th highest in the world. But it produces not a drop of it. The country’s rebellious nature has not helped this scary equation.

The Shell consortium’s attempt to bring forward the Corrib gas field off County Mayo has been stymied for years by a determined but relatively small consortium of local protesters and hard-core attention-craving eco-warriors who call themselves “Shell to Sea.”

So deep in the national psyche are the hated memories of British truncheons, Irish authorities struggle to find a proper balance in controlling the smallest crowds run amuck. In 2003 an emigree named Mary Kelly broke into a Shannon airport hanger and smashed with eco outrage with a hammer away at a US Navy transport plane en route to Iraq. A few days later she incredibly returned for more of same – and was let off in the Irish courts four years later. Which is no reason to love Big Oil. But, still, anarchy runs deep in Ireland.

Big Oil has watched the Irish scene and its public protests and court cases with trepidation. John O’Sullivan, technical director with Providence Resources, told the Financial Times, “We’ve definitely seen a Corrib ripple effect…. [Potential investors] go through the technical assessment, it gets to their main board and then someone who has worked at Shell or read about Corrib says they are not going to touch Ireland.”

Pat Rabbitte, the Irish Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, acknowledged as much. “You can bring a well ashore in about four years in Norway. By the time we have eventually gone through all the hoops here, it will be 16 or 17 years. I can’t pretend that has been a positive experience for Ireland,” he told Jamie Smyth of the Financial Times.

In 2011, 12 companies were awarded new licenses to explore for oil and gas around Ireland. These included a variety of small to medium players in the field, but despite very favorable terms offered by the Irish government, the mega-powers like Shell didn’t bother to bid.

The O’Reillys swear things are changing and one successful strike could transform the game. Maybe they’re right.

In 2009, Ireland received only 2 bids for offshore test well drilling compared to 350 in the U.K. Since 1975 an average of only one exploratory well has been drilled per year off of Ireland, and only 3% of potentially payable oil or gas fields off the Irish coast are under license for exploration. Estimates are that development of any major field off shore could bring 16.5 million euros to the Irish exchequeter, which would about make the country sound again.

One would think for such a shrunken economy, dipping deeper on the oil exploration dip stick would offer the potential general good. The current Irish government seems to agree. But this is one country that never seems to be able to get its handle on the weird.

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singapore love: Rumor on the street is the Shell Vito project is over a year behind schedule, AND Shell plans to double down and award Whale to the same contractors in the coming weeks.
Must be some serious love going on between the Singaporeans and Shell decision makers....

Bonus Group: To uscitizen,
BRAZIL:
'PS - Shell is investing 2 billion a year into Brazil and already paying off'. Assuming $2Bn (you did not quote currency), that would just about cover Shell's share of the costs of replicants, operating expenses and of course managers' BONUSES!
$2Bn would represent approximately 10% of Shell's income in 2018.
https://reports.shell.com/annual-report/2018/consolidated-financial-statements/statement-of-cash-flows.php
FPSO unit cost: our initial case ($91bn total capex) assumed a cost of $2.5 billion for each of 13 FPSO units. However, our research shows a wide range of possibilities for this cost depending on the vessel configuration; plus the fact that Brazilian shipyards should get better at building them so the cost could reduce over time. Also the project might choose to lease rather than buy the FPSOs outright, which could improve economics for the consortium depending on the lease terms.
http://openoil.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/OO_br_Libra_narrative_1.0_161104.pdf

uscitizen: Bonus group, Contradict myself - lol. Poor guy - like I said do your own research - tell us what you find, you will look like the irrational uneducated poster you are. PS - Shell is investing 2 billion a year into Brazil and already paying off. Do you ever look anything up?

Bonus Group: To US Citizen. Thank you for your post of September 9th 2019 20:12. Congratulations on also being an avid reader of this blog. You are correct in my post of June 26th 2019 23:05 I did say that '..Shell had a ‘fire sale’ of a plethora of BG ‘dross’ assets in order to raise $30Bn to disguise the amount by which they had overpaid for BG Group.' More correctly, Shell had a ‘fire sale’ including a plethora of BG ‘dross’ assets in order to raise $30Bn to disguise the amount by which they had overpaid for BG Group. This does not detract from the fact that Shell did have a 'fire sale' in order to raise $30Bn. By my estimation Shell over paid for BG Group by about 30%. The Christmas boxes were very large, but the presents were very small. You contradict yourself when you say that you will not do my homework for me, but then tell me that the split of the $30Bn assets sold was 80:20 Shell:BG. Is that correct? If so, thank you that just goes to show how worthless those BG assets were, but then that is what you can expect from a Cappuccino and Belgian chocolate lifestyle company. Any comments about what the Brazil Asset are up to these days?

uscitizen: To Bonus Group - the large percentage of assets sold by Shell were non BG assets. I will not do your homework for you, but the split is 80/20. A great example of why you do not take what this sites protagonists post as good information. But go ahead, say I am wrong and also posting garbage, do your research and tell me the number of BG asset sales vs the 30 billion Shell raised thru asset sales.

John Donovan: MESSAGE FROM JOHN FOR THE ATTENTION OF BOGUS GROUP. I have received the information you kindly sent and have replied by encrypted email.

Bill Campbell Prelude Comment: I might write in more detail but I find it rather ironic that it was this website that was telling the world 6 or so years ago that this installation did not have risk levels as low as claimed and one of the principal risk drivers was the compact nature of a hazardous substances plant with not enough space to swing a cat in. Unless you are not aware I wrote to Shell Australia at the time giving them data from 8 existing or planned onshore LNG plants which varied from 80 to 100 hectares or on average 20 to 22 times the footprint of Prelude, could they tell me as a stakeholder with shares in the Company how they arrived at their ridiculously low number but can guess I assume that a reasonable explanatory reply was not forthcoming, as sure as eggs are eggs if this plant is currently having problems or if it has problems or major accident events in future it will be due to the force fitting a complex plant, with risk levels much above which they have published, on a postage stamp of a footprint.
God willing they will never live to regret their fraudulent overly optimistic claims, risk is based on reality not wishful thinking.
Bill

Thanks. Problem is that it's behind a paywall and despite it being a great publication for the oil industry, none of us retired folk wants to invest in a subscription.

FURTHER REPLY FROM JOHN

I have received the further Prelude information you have kindly provided and have replied by encripted email.

Bonus Group: Further to Bogus Group's post yesterday. I am absolutely appalled that a Senior Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc should spout so much nonsense concerning the Prelude installation. The statement is redolent of Malcolm Brinded and his 'Touch F*ck All' policy, which led to the deaths of Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue on Brent Bravo on 11th September 2003. What is boring is the continuous misleading spin and blather from the top of this company and their lackadaisical approach to safety. 'Chronic Unease' is a well known expression in the Oil and Gas Industry, and that state of mind is far from boring or routine. In fact nothing is either boring or routine in Oil and Gas operations. Rob Jager moved last year to the post of VP Prelude after spending thirteen years as Country Chair and VP for Shell New Zealand/Shell Taranaki, after Shell announced the sale of its New Zealand interests in March 2018. Jager clearly previously has spent too much time being 'laid back' in the fantasy land of Lord of the Rings, marvelling at New Zealand's scenery and wondering who will be entertaining him for his next luxury seafood dinner accompanied by a glass of chilled expensive New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Bogus Group: PLEASE SEE REPLY FROM JOHN WHICH FOLLOWS THE COMMENT FROM BOGUS GROUP
More on Prelude article in Upstream.

I’m stunned by what can only be described as idiotic statements. Nothing like the utopia of self-aggrandisement without verification. What is Jagers’ level of technical and operational capabilities? I recall similar rhetoric from BG Group charlatans, with the “best in class” mentality and use of the most overstated expression ever to be used outside the education sector, all aimed at pleasing their taskmasters.
Ramp-up of Prelude and what Jager hopes will be decades of “uneventful” and “boring” operation.
“This will be a state where little or nothing happens. We have few if any alarms, no surprises and where things are running like clock work and we are effectively in autopilot,” he said.
“We will know when we have succeeded in this ambition because Prelude will be recognised as the most boring asset in Shell global portfolio our people will refer to it as the safest and most desirable place to work, and when the rest of the industry is knocking on our door to find out how we have achieved such a best in class outcome, especially for a facility as complex and unique as Prelude.”

REPLY FROM JOHN

Hello, I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of the article via [email protected] using an anonymous email address. I would pass it on to retired Shell EP experts for their assessment.

FG names Shell, Eni executives in $1bn bribery case – The Punch08 May 2019 11:43Google’Femi Asu with agency report
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the Federal Government said in a London lawsuit that it believed a handful of executives, including Chief Executive …

FG names Shell, Eni executives in $1bn bribery case08 May 2019 08:09Punch Newspapers’Femi Asu with agency report
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the Federal Government said in a London lawsuit that it believed a handful of executives, including Chief Executive …

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